Berkoff and Lecoq

Berkoff is a British actor, writer, director and practitioner who is known for his physical, exaggerated theatre technique which defies the norms of naturalistic theatre. His style is extremely physical preferring to focus on movement rather than voice. Berkoff often rejected ensemble productions preferring instead to focus on movement rather than voice. Berkoff said it was important "to see how I could bring mime together with the spoken word as its opposite partner, creating the form and structure of the piece" using techniques such as background movement, repetitive actions, and mime. According to Berkoff, the purpose of a script is to help "minimalise and physicalise" the story, stripping it down to its most basic components. The idea of 'Total Theatre' was important to Berkoff with the idea that every movement, line and lighting effect is perfect for a purpose to create extreme experiences for the audience.

Steven berkoff learnt under Jacques Leqoc at L'ecole Internationale De Theatre Jacques Lecoq who likely had a large influence on Berkoff's technique. A mime artist, he departed from the traditional silent mime, rejecting also the idea of mime being a codified sign language where every movement had a meaning, regarding mime instead as the body component of acting. His approach to acting was based on clowning, the use of masks and improvisation. He used two different masks, the first blank, making him use the rest of his body to express the emotion, the second one portrays an emotion such as joy, grief or torment to which he adapts his body language to express the emotion on the mask.

Beginning Berkoff 24.04.17

New term, new unit. This one combines both acting and pysical theatre the ultimate aim producing a monologue piece (though splitting it into different parts) called 'A Woman Alone' by Franca Rame using the style of Steven Berkoff (see next blog post for research on him).

Beginning the actual lesson, we started with a game passing extreme mask-like expressions from one to another across the room (you wouldn't think coming up with facial expressions was hard until having a mask (figurative) thrown at you and having to come up with one on the spot) this proved to be an extremely entertaining game with some of the faces produced frankly haunting. Expanding from this, we did the same in pairs therefore broadening the number of faces tried so that ultimately we had a facial mask expression we liked - this we then found out would have to be kept on for a length time, now a regrettable decision for some including me, whose face began to hurt after a couple of minutes - but using these expressions we then improvised around it through creating a body language using a technique of moving our bodies in a circle through our nose to find the right posture and from there the voice to create a character. It was weird how easily you began to find a character through using this technique as the face indicated a body posture and the posture a character with a unique voice (don't know what happened with mine, just seemed to morph into my neighbour's voice).

With these characters we then improvised in a 'blind date' for a minute long scene. I loved this, just suddenly deciding my character was a backwards farmer with no knowledge of modern social etiquette or hygiene. To be honest, coming up with the scene was only difficult in that we kept cracking up during the scene or losing the mask face which was really beginning to get very strained and my eyebrow which wasn't raised began shaking. Found my mask face meant it was really hard to fully pronounce words which was quite useful for the characterisation for an unintelligible accent commonly associated with farmers (though I can't do accents to save my life, though I based the character of the local farmers to my home who have really broad Derbyshire accents). Perhaps in the mini performance I hadn't really thought of a proper dialogue as it wasn't too polished and still pretty improvised, but it was fun performing it, evident in the number of times I almost cracked up. All the other performances were top-notch, I was literally in tears at the end of Jenna, Melody and Sarah's performance.

Still utilising these characters, we were again split into groups, this time three of fours and used our characters to represent a characteristic of one person such as self-awareness, or sexual-drive. Still not sure I quite got the brief despite asking for clarification, but I went for it anyway. These were used in a job interview opener thing selling ourselves for the job of cleaner in an organisation. We came up with lines for each characteristic, swapping for each line. It was quite fun exploring three completely alternate aspects of one character.

Our mini performance:

I think I blanked a little on what I was going to say and rushed it a little, so it wasn't as decent a performance as I would have liked, but I loved working up to it. The process is somehow effective (at least internally) at helping grasp characters, though exaggerated, that's probably what I like most about it - not having any real restraints on how much you portray a character. 

I loved this lesson and can't wait to explore it more through this term.

Clear-Up Saturday

3 tons of soil...
               Some number of orange buckets...
                                                      Three wheelbarrows...
                                                                                 Twelve teenage girls....
                                                                                                               and one crazy teacher!

Link to video

WHY DID WE DO IT ON SOIL?!

(nah, it was worth it.)

Interview Review

WHY?!?!?!? Why? Why? (delilah...)

I didn't mention the coat! Despite a golden question, I couldn't just give a simple answer, no! Instead I thought, "Yes Holly, gabble on about random things, ah yes, I've only ever played male parts, ah yes, I tried to walk in a kingly manner..." but no, don't talk simply talk about using your costume, that would be stupid. To elaborate, in the mystery question, I was given, "how did you convince the audience that you were a man?" (or something along those lines) as I hadn't addressed this in my development of my character - I guess it just hadn't occurred to me because, as I've just mentioned, I've mainly played male roles throughout my lifetime, even at primary. The obvious, and far more concise response than the gabbled one I gave, is to talk about how I had a massive suit jacket thing, which to make look convincing and as though I wore it every day, I took home and practiced walking and talking in, and different positions which could show different emotions etc. and from comments afterwards, apparently I pulled this off pretty well, and it helped not only the audience, but I think myself to feel more powerful/ kingly, as before when I was first given the coat I felt a little young and girlish because it just didn't feel right on me. Funny the effect a costume has...

(note: not a double chin but a line of mud!)
- Photo credits: dad

I also made sure I had a baggy shirt which I tucked into my trousers so the chest looked flatter, and wore baggy trousers to make sure it looked more masculine. I already had the short hair, so ahead in that department.

And WHY did my mind go blank in the metatheatre question - I was going to say how using metatheatre blurred the lines, challenging the idea of reality and how that effectively got the audience more involved.

I also missed out a lot in my evaluation of my performance:

• On the Wednesday night, my Granddad came to watch (who used to be a professional actor so no pressure) and he said at moments in which I was being 'soft' I went too quiet and should work on projecting whilst keeping the tone voice 'soft' through employing the diaphragm more.
• On the Thursday night, I messed up a couple of lines, I think I fell into the second night rut and was over confident
• I said "dies" instead of "fall"
• I missed the first half of a section of speech out before I throw Antigone on the ground making the build up from pleading to anger too short and therefore seeming contrived
• Strangle was a bit odd
• Also didn't manage to pull the machete out of the scabbard in time, it got stuck, had to violently tug it three times (almost pulling Melody over) before it got free of the scabbard, and I was able to catch up with Harriet.

Anyway, think it went quite well otherwise, apart from the general gabbling which is characteristic of my normal panicked, nervous interview mode...

              ... I hate interviews...

                                                        ....So much!

Performance Evaluation

My evaluation (ignore the walking over stiles and mental hair)  though do take note of how cool I look in ray bans ;)

Technical and Dress rehearsal

As the performance nears, we met the daunting prospect of our last rehearsal. Butterflies already doing their work in my stomach, I am from now terrified about the performances. The lesson on the Monday served as a tidy up of the notes we received on Saturday, (giving us the constant background activity of Melody putting her guard outfit on and off and sorting her infinite props for the full hour) meaning myself and Harriet practiced the two guard sequences as this was our weakest points (well, mine on the first scene and Harriet on the second scene). For the past few runthroughs I've been struggling with quite grasping the scene in which the guard reports about the body, for some reason I constantly felt uncomfortable with the way I said most of the lines and every solution didn't seem to work for me, so today I worked with Harriet who was pretty confident with this scene. The biggest line problem was "No. You'll do since you're here" as Chipp had loved the Harriet had said it on the Saturday which was a sort of "No! You'll do! Since you're​ ... Here!" Which I really struggled delivering without seeming too contrived and in effective, but I worked out it was in the way I gestured: I needed to point then with a new movement pronounce a point to the ground with an authoritative "here". Another thing I've been working on since Saturday is looking comfortable in the suit (which sadly still makes me look like a boy in his dad's clothes) rather then just standing with my arms by the side of the coat such as putting hand in pocket or side, neatebig it etc. Which really helps to feel comfortable on stage as one of my biggest downfalls as an actor is how uncomfortable feel with my hands and gestures, and I think it works to make the whole character more convincing (unless I awkwardly fumble putting my hand in my pocket as that doesn't really look confident or authoritative, hopefully that won't happen on the night).

In the afternoon, with free periods, I worked in the drama space with the mud. My main worry is the big section in the middle with Antigone as I haven't yet rehearsed that in the mud or even since last Wednesday missing it out in all the runthroughs on Saturday and again the evening later because it took too long to do in the time we had. It's concerning me a lot as I really wanted to perform to the rest of the cast at least once to get the nerves out of the way a bit. Anyway, I went through all the bits I have contact with soil and props in which weren't too difficult to adapt to the soil, but had to dig quite hard to get a handful of earth for the "if a handful of earth isn't thrown over his body" and then looking at the last monologues whilst eating grapes and drinking the wine, which turns out is easier than I thought it would be, though I'll probably not be eating as many grapes as Chipp wants me too or something like that. Working with Megan and Harriet I also had a look at the section which cropped up on Saturday, "Now just listen! Alright, I've got the villain's part and you've been cast as the heroine..." As I want quite getting the timing right, they do it differently in theirs but now I feel comfortable say "Now just listen as I storm up to Caitlin then slamming her down on "alright" the following part I've also worked on to make more threatening and intimidating, perhaps at the expense of looking old but he is called vigorous so... 

Of course it was me that was able to stub their toe within ten minutes of the technical rehearsal and commence to bleed over the soil. Ooops! The lighting made the whole set look really effective, and dark (hehe... ironic) but in a moody way. And the technical rehearsal is long and a bit dull... but necessary.

So commenced the long night of three runs in succession till 9pm again without the massive scene which was again a little off-putting, but we agreed to rehearse these scenes the evening before the performance.

Finally, I managed to get the scene with the guard comfortable, I think working with the coat helped as I had worked on the way I used my hands on the Sunday and that definitely helped the lines, and I got that line right where I go "No! You'll do, since you here" in a full rehearsal.

All the rehearsals went really well from my perspective, though I received these notes:

• I need to articulate my thought process more with my tone
• BE MORE AGGRESSIVE IN TUMBRIL (SWORD) SCENE
• Be more exhausted over Antigone whilst talking to Chorus about her death

The whole thing is feeling strong and I'm looking forward to tomorrow night.

Entertaining video of Sarah practicing slicing fruit (pretty good aim)

Full Day Rehearsal - 18th March

All the soil with wooden side compartments.

The soil with the body

Well the day began with the wonderful job of wheeling dirt in and out of the rehearsal space to fill the stage with soil. Whoop! Looked really cool afterwards actually.

More run-throughs...

though beforehand we had a little safety check going through all the different throws and falls etc. (didn't realise till then quite how many times Creon throws Antigone down) the mud all felt pretty safe and adaptable. However, one of the side compartments containing props consistently stuck, so needed a hard tug to lift up the lid. Funnest part of the day was definitely playing around in the soil.

The day commenced with three run-throughs in succession which required the cut of the massive section with Antigone and Creon in each run-through which was a little unsettling as I wanted to do a full run with the scene in the mud so we could get the run of things, but I knew that it was required for timing, as three different casts meant we were very tight for time. Though, I also haven't had much opportunity to rehearse that section with Emily in a while which I find a bit worrying as it could be a bit rough around the edges if we don't get to do it much before the actual night. Sure it'll be fine...

The run-throughs all seemed to work well, especially in the mud which made it not only look awesome, but added an earthy feeling and just added to the whole effect of the play. The first scene with the guard is definitely improving though it still isn't quite how I want it, just a couple of the lines still feel a little awkward in the mouth. Furthermore, I was way too early with my entrance to the Antigone and Guard scene, just getting paranoid about being late, but also, my entrance was exactly very commanding, yeah... work on that.

Most of the run-through seemed to go pretty well, though one of the main criticisms was that although there was evident work with the coat, I looked pretty camp in places with the hands on hips, and some choices weren't very appropriate, but each time it looked wrong I realised pretty quick that they weren't feeling right so I'm getting a feeling for when to put hands in pockets etc. think I've improved my thinking face as well.

As page I managed to mess up putting Creon's coat on Harriet, which helped me realise the importance of prop placement as I looked like a right idiot on stage desperately trying to get the coat on in time. Got a strategy now though, so shouldn't happen again, I think it was the new staging and actually using a coat for once rather than miming the coat.

I think it's all shaping up to be a very good performance.

Monday 13th (ooooh) March

In the lesson, we went back to the mass-guard scene with the whole chorus, getting timing spot on etc. my part of turning my back on the action as Creon was quite easy I admit readily, as we decided that to make the fact that some chorus members don't get involved less odd, they should be evidently completely separate from the action. Playing the guard however, less easy. I hadn't done it for a while so was a bit rusty with what I was meant to specifically do, but one of the biggest difficulties was maintaining the energy of the scene through ensuring everyone was maintaining the same level as noise with no drops, though if one loud voice drops, others can get unsure and it becomes a vortex of failure. In the end I realised that even if just made inaudible shouts it would spur others to maintain the noise. Another problem I found (thanks to Harriet volunteering every ad lib line) was the timing and volume of "I can see your tits in that love!" (my character is a lovely man). The timing we sorted with having three whooshes of the sword, slap on the bum, slap on the bum, three whooshes then "Tits!" so I knew when to say it now and everyone was ready for it, however, with everyone shouting, it's quite hard to get a line heard over it all (apparently especially if you have lungs like mine) but eventually I seemed to be getting the hang of it.

With no lessons in the afternoon, myself and my fellow Creon, miss Harriet Mellor, decided to stay in the rehearsal space to go over little Creon sections. Perhaps not as productive as I had hoped, but thoroughly useful and very fun. It was also this afternoon we were introduced to the coats we would be wearing though Chipp went through about a dozen coats before one "fitted" me, though I still think I looked like a drowned puppy in it, but there were none smaller. Not really sure why Chipp didn't start from small up... apparently I am "Deceptively petite" (and I'm not really sure how to take that) but it is true, I have an oddly proportioned body which I have long ago accepted and am now proud of - it's my odd feature I'm allowed to complain about. Anyway, we rehearsed all the bits and pieces then had a small discussion about Creon, which I wasn't very prepared for (as you might tell).

Discussion about Creon:

Video Link

Videos of our (very productive) afternoon:

Brother Section (sorry about the noise)

Sorry about the breaks, just recording our rehearsal process

In the evening we had a rehearsal with the cast for Harriet's Creon but I went along to play the page and get the hang of my part in that. It was a pretty simple rehearsal for me, though useful as I wasn't completely certain of all the parts in which the page comes in with Creon etc. One of the things we added in the rehearsal was adding Chorus participation in the scene with the nurse and Antigone, e.g. urging Antigone to put a grape in the Nurse's mouth at the beginning. I like this direction as it really adds to the atmosphere and gives Nurse a real opportunity to play up lines and work with the chorus to make it funnier.